All site categories

Apple iOS Is Safer Than Android, According To McAfee

Review Date: December, 5

News and Articles

There persists severe competition in nearly every aspect of the market which is also very true for the market of applications which provides a fight against the malware. In this industry, Apple has rightly outshined the Android devices providing a safer environment but, it should also be noted that not a single mobile device can be considered as risk free as it was indicated in the report issued by McAfee.

By far, Apple’s services to secure its mobile devices and products can be praised, as per the report, taking a note that there have been no known major cases of viruses and malware to attack an iPhone for at least those who are not been termed as jailboken. Another reason as to why the technology of iOS is safer than others is that Apple restricts the way as to how the apps are downloaded by the users.

The owners of the iOS device of Apple has been offered the ability to download only via the Mac App Store or through the Mobile Device Management which in return provides control onto the IT department over to the Apple oriented devices within their organizations. Moreover, the application of Mobile Device Managements too, requires to be approved from Apple Inc.

Presently, Apple is running a single App Store and that has various tight controls over it which makes the Apple products usage environment more secure and safer.

In comparison, the method of offering applications to its users for the purpose of enhancing the devices performance, is quite open to a greater degree and with this level of openness, several risks are associated. Although, Google is controlling its Android Market, they are also provided with the facility of downloading apps from third party websites in a very easy way which might not include the required security aspect in question.

Another factor related is that the market of Android devices is very much vulnerable to threats. Giving a simple example, Google planned to get rid of several malicious applications this March after a nasty malware; DroidDream attacked and infected a whole lot of users. Making a calculation, the company removed 58 malicious apps from both the market as well as from the mobile devices from where the users tend to download it.

Going further and considering that Android is a quite a fragmented system, many of the handsets makers tweaks Google’s open source code and also practices to modify some features that are particularly related to the security aspect. Such an approach increases the time factor for updating the operating system to approach the users of the Android devices as many of these updates requires to be customized for various other devices.

It should also not be neglected, that almost all of the malware gains entry into the devices through the Apps Store, this point has bought the Android devices in a greater risk oriented environment. Although, the Symbian of the Nokia Company is considered as the most popular cell phone platform for authors of malware, this role was adopted by Android in the second quarter of the ongoing year which amounts to attract almost 63 percent of all the malware infections at that time.

From all the discussions, MacAfee finally saw a change of approach in the process of combating against malware by both Apple and Google. The report stated that the approach of Apple is rather proactive and mainly focuses on prevention whereas, the Google’s approach is to is to create applications and then deal with the issues that occurs within them in a quite reactive manner. Although, this move from Google can be considered as sensible to generate a large volume and range of applications, but looking from the security perspective, the environment created seems very close to what is the comfort zone of malware writers.

Both the devices of iOS and Android are based on the foundation of Linux/Unix which gives them a considerable safe environment inherently. The vulnerability to threats and security are generally due to the developers and manufacturers who does not consider the security of the device their priority and immediately release their app in the market even before they are not completely tested and this is where Apple has paced because protecting the users will protect the company’s mobile platform as well as its mobile devices.